Andy Burnham speaks first and thinks later

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0:42Poppy Coburn: It's been a week of Russian meddling in Brexit, Trump wrestling Tigers, and Gordon Brown allegedly turning to exorcism to sign a footballer.

0:50Michael Deacon: Just another week in the news. Welcome to The Weekend Tea with me, Poppy Coburn.

0:54Poppy Coburn: And me, Michael Deacon. What I would say to him, look, If, as you claim, these Russians are so effective at influencing our elections, is that why Labour won the last general election? Was Putin sitting there thinking, I want to destroy Britain, what can I do? I know, I'll give them a Labour government. That's it, that will ruin them. But we're going to start with Donald Trump, because he has just hired a very exciting and very blonde new spokesperson.

1:17Michael Deacon: I was a bit offended I didn't get the phone call. I've been auditioning for MAGA leading lady for several years now. I can see that, yes. You're exactly his type. I don't think my teeth are white enough, but I'm working on it. Seriously, next time you see me, guys. British teeth, that's the problem. Zing! They're going to be completely made of porcelain. Yes, I sketched the first running of Katie Zakaria, who is the new Trump press secretary. She is replacing Caroline Lever, who, if you can believe it, is under the age of 30. She was the very, very impressive Gem Z press secretary.

1:45Poppy Coburn: Actually, this is Trump, so I can very well believe it. Yes. Young and blonde. Okay, yeah, I find that actually very believable.

1:51Michael Deacon: She was really fantastic. I mean, she was a tough lady. She had to defend Trump turn two. apparently they were very close not in that way get your mind out the gutter she's got two young children also a much older man but it wasn't the president i promise she was out of the job she said she wanted to pay attention to her family now she was apparently so irreplaceable that the job lay vacant for about 42 days they could not find someone to do this role and then suddenly we got the news that this lady katie zacharia was going to fill in for the position there were quite a few names that were bandied around about who potentially take the job she was not one of them And I think we got a little insight into why that was.

2:27Michael Deacon: She kind of wobbled out onto the podium and smiled at the assembled journalists in the room. And it became quite obvious that she couldn't actually speak.

2:36Poppy Coburn: Right.

2:36Michael Deacon: Which I do kind of think is quite important if you're going to be a press secretary.

2:40Poppy Coburn: In a spokesperson, yeah. You feel that's kind of part of the job description, the whole speaking thing.

2:44Michael Deacon: She did look the part. So it was a very awkward affair. So she starts off by reading some notes. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time. I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well. Especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz with energy and excitement. Again, you're not really supposed to do that if you're a spokesperson. Imagine if we did this podcast and I was just...

3:11Poppy Coburn: Well, to be honest...

3:12Michael Deacon: Katie Zakaria, Michael Deacon.

3:16Poppy Coburn: I'm often tempted.

3:17Michael Deacon: So she just starts out saying about how much she loves the president. She didn't have to check her notes for that one, so that's sincere. And starts listing off all the things that Trump has been very good at. She sounds quite a lot like a pageant queen, very flat affect, nervously hiding behind a big mane of long hair. And then she turns to the assembled press corps and she starts asking questions. She is given the most softball questions you can imagine. The first question is literally, why are you so brilliant? And can we get more Breitbart reporters in the room? And she still somehow is very awkward.

3:45Michael Deacon: she accidentally calls Donald Trump her husband, which is kind of the worst thing that can possibly happen if you are the conventionally attractive young blonde new press secretary.

3:55Poppy Coburn: But if you're Donald Trump, on the other hand, he's delighted. There you are. I'm very happy with my new hire.

4:00Michael Deacon: Maybe not so much. Maybe didn't love it. And the entire affair went on for about 14 minutes. Which is not very long, really. No, not very long.

4:08Poppy Coburn: You compare, you know, Vladimir Putin does one press conference a year, but it's four hours long. So this is 14 minutes.

4:14Michael Deacon: I mean, I guess it's not that nervous if you're Vladimir Putin, because who the hell is going to ask you a dangerous question? Why are you so great, Vladimir? Why is the war in Ukraine going so fantastic?

4:21Poppy Coburn: The sketch writers are really generous.

4:23Michael Deacon: Yeah, I bet. I bet. So I have to say, I wasn't very nice to her, Paul Katie Zakaria. But just to be clear, I love Caroline Levy, so I'm not a disgusting woman hater, which would be quite difficult when I look in the mirror every morning. But I think the best part about her introduction as being the new press secretary didn't come from her actual performance. It came from an interview afterwards. Right. So Donald Trump is there. And say, look, she's a great woman. She's a fantastic woman. She's an attorney. And one of the journalists outside goes, oh, she's an attorney. Could you tell us, Katie, where you passed the bar exam, which is obviously the legal requirement.

4:55Michael Deacon: If you want to become an attorney in America, you have to pass this exam. And she kind of smiles and she gets this vacant look in her eyes. And she went, when I was in China. She said she passed the bar exam. Where did she pass the bar exam? Which state? Which state? Tell us. You're an attorney? China. Where did you pass the bar exam? I moved to China. which is not a state in America from when I last checked.

5:19Poppy Coburn: Not yet. I mean, I know Trump has big plans. He wants Canada. He wants Greenland. Maybe he wants China.

5:25Michael Deacon: Yeah. So, I mean, that was great. I think the Trump administration is doing fantastically at the moment. I'm sure the midterms are going to go over like a child.

5:31Poppy Coburn: Fantastic. Well, I know one of the things you were saying in your column about her, you were saying she's incredibly gushing all this. I am so honoured to work for President Trump. And I was thinking, well, I mean, if you're going to work for Donald Trump, this is probably how you have to talk. But I just cannot imagine a press secretary for, let's say, Andy Burnham talking about that. I am so honoured to work for Prime Minister Burnham. I just love buses and talking about my favourite Oasis B-sides. My favourite Oasis B-side is Talk Tonight. Prime Minister Burnham can play that in his guitar.

5:59Michael Deacon: Let's give it up for number 10 North, everybody.

6:02Poppy Coburn: Exactly that. You don't get that in this country.

6:04Michael Deacon: No, I'm quite happy about that. I mean, it would be very, very difficult. I mean, what if it even was for Keir Starmer? Tom Baldwin having to walk out there and just talk about how much he loves him.

6:13Poppy Coburn: He is so charismatic. He really makes me laugh. He is very handsome. Just like my husband. Anyway, that's not the only thing Trump's been doing this week.

6:22Michael Deacon: No, no, unfortunately not. His social media posts, I do love him on True Social. I have to admit, he's my guilty pleasure. But this one, though. This one is maybe slightly going too far. So there was obviously the tragic news of the man who was killed in Yorkshire, who climbed into a tiger's enclosure and died.

6:40Poppy Coburn: At the zoo, right, yeah.

6:42Michael Deacon: But Donald Trump decided to take this really horrific video of a man having lost his life and turn it into a way to talk about how brilliant he is. So he posts an AI video of himself wrestling this tiger and it ends with the tiger kind of smiling and he's got his arm around it and they're always posing for a photo.

6:58Poppy Coburn: In respect, you're a great fighter, Donald Trump. No one else could have wrestled me like that.

7:03Michael Deacon: You brought me down to the ground, but at the end of the day we can shake hands and understand that we're both the king of the jungle.

7:08Poppy Coburn: We respect each other as equals when it comes to wrestling.

7:10Michael Deacon: I quite like Donald Trump's AR videos. He posted one where he took Caitlin Collins, who is a CNN reporter, and he runs into a room, he picks her up, and he lifts her to a dumpster, opens the lid, chucks her in, closes it. Job done. That's how you deal with journalists in America.

7:28Poppy Coburn: Well, yes, apparently so. I mean, obviously, the Trump Tiger video is phenomenally crass, but I just think, for goodness sake, There's no point complaining about Donald Trump doing something offensive and insensitive because he does that every single day. It is just I feel like we are all just desensitized to it. Now, this is this is it. There's no point complaining about it. I just can't believe there's anyone out there who's seen that video going, well, I say up till now, I really respected Donald Trump. I thought he was a really compassionate, sensitive, caring kind of guy. But now I've seen this whole other side of him.

7:57Poppy Coburn: I never seen this before. No, I find him quite offensive.

8:00Michael Deacon: Yeah, this is the man he said when he was debating with John McCain years and years ago when he was first running for president, that he preferred pilots that didn't get shot down. This is John McCain who was fighting in the Vietnam War. And Donald Trump, he obviously dodged the draft. Yeah. So he was a prisoner of war for several years, John McCain, and obviously was being tortured by the Viet Cong. And Donald Trump was attacking him for getting his plane shot down.

8:23Poppy Coburn: There you go. What a man. He himself has recognised, in one of his moments of clarity, he himself has openly said, you know, I could say anything and they would still lap it up.

8:32Michael Deacon: He's the funniest man alive. I'm sorry. I mean, he is right. I mean, it is proven that he can just get away with it.

8:37Poppy Coburn: He is funny. Why bother complaining?

8:39Michael Deacon: I'm going to get myself into trouble if I keep defending Donald Trump. We're going to have to move on to safer territory.

8:43Poppy Coburn: You did say you wanted to be his new press secretary. I think this Katie woman's not got long to go.

8:49Michael Deacon: Donald, she hasn't got it in her, OK? Get me in.

8:52Poppy Coburn: And you are actually flying to America next week, aren't you? I am. There you go. You claim you're going to cover the midterms, but I know your game. I know what you really want.

9:00Michael Deacon: Wouldn't that be amazing if I just turned up at the podium and you're like, is that Jesus Christ? Is that Poppy? She had a facelift.

9:05Poppy Coburn: And meanwhile, here's Katie sitting opposite me on the podcast.

9:08Michael Deacon: Yeah, she's just joining.

9:08Poppy Coburn: You got any topical satirical gags for us, Katie?

9:11Michael Deacon: I'm so honoured to be here on a weekend tea with you, Michael Deacon. I think I prefer that, actually. Right, let's move on to safer territory. Let's talk about Russia and Vladimir Putin. Right, yes. Good, good. Our wonderful Prime Minister, our dear leader, Andrew Burnham, has decided to, he's kind of got a track record of doing this stuff now. He'll come out and do an interview and he'll say something that's quite shocking and almost unbelievable. And then he'll have to walk it back because it turns out he hasn't actually read his brief or he's just decided to go right. And he did this this week with who else but our favourite podcasters, Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart.

9:44Poppy Coburn: Love them.

9:45Michael Deacon: And decided to say that he knew that there had been Russian interference in the Brexit referendum. and started making these slightly oblique claims that Putin was darkly trying to... Now, look, we all know that they were trying to. It's the Russians. There hasn't been an election that they haven't tried to interfere with. But I think what he was trying to do by this is kind of create doubts that the Brexit referendum was actually illegitimate, which then opens up a question of, well, if it was illegitimate, then we've just got to join the EU.

10:12Poppy Coburn: But I asked the question coming into Downing Street, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? and I've had the clear answer that yes, there was. I think you're giving him too much credit. It makes it sound like it's planned, like it's thought through. I think he's guilty of what Bridget Jones calls auto-witter. He just goes into full auto-witter and words just tumble out of his mouth without any thought at all. He does this a lot. I mean, Cami Bay not pointed out, you know, he's always putting his foot in his mouth. I think that's what this was. It's just, you know, he's not thought it through at all.

10:40Michael Deacon: He just got overly excited.

10:41Poppy Coburn: Because we've seen quite a few examples of this now and I think this is just typical of his character. But what I would say to him, look, If, as you claim, these Russians are so effective at influencing our elections, is that why Labour won the last general election? Was Putin sitting there thinking, right, I want to destroy Britain, what can I do? I know, I'll give them a Labour government. That's it, that will ruin them. And then this year he's thought, well, Britain's very close to being destroyed, but I just need to push it over the edge. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to make Andy Burnham prime minister.

11:08Poppy Coburn: I'm going to rig the Labour leadership contest. And then that's it. That's it for Britain. Britain's done.

11:13Michael Deacon: I quite like this idea. is there's going to be like a number 10 Siberia office that's opening up. There you are. It's just staffed by these slightly dodgy-looking Russian apparatchiks that are apparently delivering its horse with the civil service. Maybe we've cracked the case open.

11:26Poppy Coburn: Maybe. But anyway, the point is that Burnham had absolutely no evidence for what he was saying. In fact, his colleagues had to spend the next day saying, well, actually, that's not quite what he meant. They may have tried to influence elections, but they haven't succeeded, and this sort of thing. So actually what he said wasn't true at all.

11:40Michael Deacon: I have to say, having watched the clip, Even Roy Stewart himself looked as if he didn't quite believe it. He was scrunching his face up unbelievably. Or maybe this is just the latest one of his interesting experiments with pushing the frontier of what the human body can do. Of course, we spoke before about his amazing extendable neck. Maybe he just couldn't help himself. Yeah, leaning over. There you go. More political news. I think slightly supernatural, this one. Apparently, Gordon Brown attended an exorcism to help Wraith Roethers sign a player while he was the Chancellor.

12:10Poppy Coburn: Yes, Gordon Brown's a lifelong fan of Wraith Rovers, 13 from Fife, where he's originally from. And supposedly this happened 20 years ago now.

12:18Michael Deacon: I guess that makes it okay.

12:20Poppy Coburn: This player sent a half called Marvin Andrews, very, very Christian, very, very religious man. Supposedly he was going to be taking part in some kind of a service where an exorcism would take place. And Gordon Brown wanted to meet the guy to persuade him to sign for Wraith. Anyway, Gordon Brown spokesman has since denied that Gordon Brown has ever attended an exorcism in his life. And I have to say, I'm inclined to believe that because I feel that if Gordon Brown ever had attended an exorcism while he was chancellor, it wouldn't have been so he could persuade some centre-half to sign for a lower league Scottish team.

12:52Poppy Coburn: No, it'd be so he could go up to the exorcist and say, I know a man who is possessed by evil spirits. He's called Tony.

13:00Michael Deacon: You need to see him.

13:02Poppy Coburn: Could you possibly drive the evil spirits out or just drive Tony out? That would be fine.

13:07Michael Deacon: The power of Christ compels you. There you are. Is there anything you can do?

13:10Poppy Coburn: to read me of this evil man. There is, you know,

13:14Michael Deacon: there's a whiff of sulfur about some of these new Labour types. Maybe he had the right idea all along.

13:19Poppy Coburn: There you are, you see. New Labour, new danger. The Tories were right.

13:21Michael Deacon: I do really enjoy when politicians get quite wee-wee. I mean, everyone knows about Sherry Blair and Sherry Blair's sister and all the kind of slightly bizarre spiritual stuff that she's been getting into. But my favourite is Ronald Reagan, one of America's most beloved presidents. His wife, Nancy Reagan, apparently got really into astrology. You know, at the peak of nuclear tensions between them and the Soviet Union, there was an astrologer just wandering around the White House apparently giving the President advice. Although it must have been good advice.

13:46Poppy Coburn: Well, here you are, two terms, very successful.

13:49Michael Deacon: Clearly it wasn't written in the stars that we were going to get blown up, so maybe we shouldn't turn our nauses up at the supernatural.

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15:09Poppy Coburn: Anyway, that's enough politics because I want to talk about something much more interesting, which is women wearing skin tight clothing.

15:15Michael Deacon: Of course.

15:16Poppy Coburn: That's what I want to talk about because there's a big row in America, a comedian called Shane Gillis. He's fantastic. He recently broke the world record for the largest ever comedy audience for a stand up gig, almost 75 ,000 people. Anyway, he was on the American comedy show Saturday Night Live. And he told a joke, which I think we better not quote from because it's a little bit rude, a little bit graphic for a family friendly podcast. But in any case, I will paraphrase him by saying that he essentially made fun of women going to the gym wearing excessively revealing shorts. I'll put it like that.

15:46Poppy Coburn: And a lot of women have been very offended by this, calling him sexist and misogynist and all the rest of it. Personally, I've got to say, I don't know what the guy's problem is, because I, for one, have absolutely no problem with fit women wearing skin tight clothing. as a staunch male feminist, I will always defend a woman's inalienable right, if I can say that, to wear as little as possible, whether that's in a gym or anywhere else I happen to be. That's fine. So I'm going to have to stand up for them here. I'm going to defend them.

16:12Michael Deacon: You know what? Shane Gillis, not only is he a fantastic comedian and obviously very successful comedian, given how much money you would have pulled in from his last live show, I also just think he is smarter than everyone else. Do you not just think he had a plan here? I'm going to make a skit that's going to make women really really offended and angry and the way they're going to push back against me is by posting photos of themselves wearing sexy skimpy clothing and tagging me in it yeah he would have been tagged in hundreds of thousands of photos of attractive women who are fit from working out in the gym

16:42Poppy Coburn: maybe a little bit sweaty he's scrolling through his phone going oh no i've not been punished enough

16:48Michael Deacon: yet ladies keep it keep it coming i i think this is all planned i mean i have to say i completely agree with him sorry i'm really attacking the sisterhood today first i'm attacking katie and Now I'm about to attack women who are going to the gym. If you ever see me working out in the gym.

17:00Poppy Coburn: Which I haven't. Which you haven't.

17:02Michael Deacon: No one in this office has seen me working out in the gym. You probably wouldn't even recognise me. I wear literally a big old man's T-shirt. I've got my disgusting old trainers on. My hair's pushed back. I'm sweating. I'm gross. Probably stressed out because I'm not strong as I want to be. And yet I see women all the time, not just wearing the skin tight, like a coat thing, which is one thing, but they're posing with a camera in the gym. Which freaks me out as a woman because I look disgusting. I'm in the photo.

17:30Poppy Coburn: They're filming themselves working out. Filming themselves working out. Why are they doing that?

17:33Michael Deacon: Well, there's a slightly dark reason for this, which I have also asked this question. I remember speaking to a female friend of mine about it. She said, you know, they're all promoting their OnlyFans accounts.

17:42Poppy Coburn: Pornography, basically. Yeah. Their own porn, homemade porn.

17:45Michael Deacon: They are actually promoting homopautography on their accounts. So what they'll do is they will deliberately film themselves wearing very, very skimpy clothing. We are talking about clothing where the pants that they're wearing are like making their butt look bigger. Really tight, small bras. Your face is very, very solid. You're trying not to make eye contact when I'm talking about this. And they'll be doing stuff like, you know, they're squatting. And they've set their camera up like next to the mirror so you can see them working out. For one, they try and make content where a man will come up to them and say like, oh, you're dressed inappropriately in the gym.

18:17Michael Deacon: And then they'll post it and say, aren't men disgusting? And then it gets them more attention online and easier to create their accounts. For others, it's literally they're just selling these images and themselves working out. I had to complain to my local gym because there were women in the changing room where you are getting changed after you've had a shower, filming themselves and posting it, even though it's a public space and you're not allowed to do that. It's to make the sex offender. So solidarity with Shane Gillis.

18:42Poppy Coburn: Well, I've got to say. Obviously a problem. This is the reason I don't go to the gym anymore. Because you're scared you're going to see naked ladies. Well, mostly it's because I'm a fat and lazy middle-aged man who'd rather just, you know, slob about on the sofa. But also, in part, I'm worried that there's going to be women filming themselves in the gym, and I'll end up in the back of the shot. Now, I'll be looking even sort of fatter and redder and sweaty than I normally do, and I don't really want that, particularly if they're really popular sort of social media influencers. And then, you know, 17 million complete strangers around the world are going to have a good laugh at, you know, my jiggling moobs or whatever I'm doing, you know, I'm running on the treadmill.

19:16Poppy Coburn: No, so I don't set foot in a gym anymore.

19:18Michael Deacon: Look, there's a happy medium. No one wants women to have to wear a burqa. I mean, actually, they probably do. Maybe a couple of the independent MPs do.

19:25Poppy Coburn: There are some people who want to, yes.

19:26Michael Deacon: There are definitely some people in the UK that do want that. But we don't. Not here at the Daily Telegraph. We do not want women to have to wear a burqa. But you know if you're a woman, if you're wearing a tiny bra and very tight shorts, people are going to look at you. Not necessarily because they're perving on you, but because you're just like, oh, wow, okay, I can see everything. You've just woken me up this morning. So, yeah, solidarity with Shane Gillis. There you go. He said nothing wrong.

19:48Poppy Coburn: Well, anyway, I've got a question for you, Poppy, and I promise you this is not about women's skin-tight clothing. Tom Cruise just put out a new film. It's called Digger, and he's done a lot of promotion for it, but people are saying this is on course to being one of the biggest box office disasters of all time. Nobody is going to see it, but I find that there is an exception. One person in Britain, at least, has seen it, and it's you. You've actually seen this film.

20:12Michael Deacon: I have seen Digger. So my partner very kindly decided to book tickets to the cinema.

20:18Poppy Coburn: Oh, two of you then.

20:19Michael Deacon: Yes, there were two of us in the cinema. Two tickets. And I said, oh, Digger, I haven't really heard of this. It's a Tom Cruise film? Okay. What are the reviews like? Oh, they're quite bad. Right. So we go into the cinema. It's a very long film. All films now have to be at least three hours long and your butt goes completely numb when you're sat in the seats. There was nobody there. It was just us. I really enjoyed the film. Really? I actually really, it's quite strange.

20:42Poppy Coburn: The critics are wrong.

20:43Michael Deacon: I mean, no, the critics aren't wrong because they shouldn't have spent so much money on it. It's like an arthouse film that randomly has Tom Cruise in it for some reason. It really reminds me of, there was a film that came out last year. It was a Sidney Sweeney film. The first massive Sidney Sweeney. Yeah, exactly. You're making a face. When they stopped smiling because it was Sidney Sweeney who was completely covered up and dressed as like a middle-aged female boxer. And funnily enough, lots of men didn't actually want to see Sidney Sweeney dressed like that.

21:09Poppy Coburn: And that was a bomb, wasn't it? Well, she certainly learned her lesson from that episode. Now she knows who her audience is.

21:14Michael Deacon: Yes, now she's dressing like a Shane Gillis gym bunny.

21:18Poppy Coburn: There we are.

21:19Michael Deacon: And I think perhaps this is a bit of the problem with the Tom Cruise film. It's supposed to be a lesson about climate change, but it's not too unbearably woke, I mean, if you can believe that. It is quite an interesting film, but why on earth did they spend so much money on it?

21:32Poppy Coburn: And also, why is Tom Cruise not looking like Tom Cruise? He's covered in prosthetics, so you can't even recognise him. And the truth is, Tom, people go to see your films because they want to see you in them. They like the way you look, Tom. You're probably aware of this. or apparently he isn't. He wants to be taken seriously as an actor so he thinks, well, that means I must not be judged on my appearance. I'm going to look as ugly as possible. Sorry, Tom, people don't want that from you.

21:52Michael Deacon: I'm pretty sure that after he had the massive box office smash of Top Gun, he just assumed that he could be the only man to bring back cinema. I think he was like, I'm going to bring back the blockbuster. So he signed up for this quite strange arthouse film and they put so much money into the development of it. And now it's been like the biggest flop of all time. I wonder if Tom Cruise is going to be feeling quite small. even without his shoes on. He must be feeling very small at the moment. Very good. But anyway, I try to make it a success, Tom. Don't blame me. Blame Michael. Blame everyone else who didn't go see it.

22:22Michael Deacon: It's my fault.

22:22Poppy Coburn: Look, I've got an excuse, OK? I'm the father of a 12-year-old child. So the past decade, all of the films I've seen in the cinema are children's animations, OK? I don't get to see films for grown-ups. So, no, I have not seen the new Tom Cruise film, but I certainly have seen the new Shaun the Sheep, which is very good. What was it like? It was much better than Digger, I'm going to guess. Here's a weird one, Poppy. Explain this. Staff at Oxford University have been told not to use the phrase, learn the ropes. Now, at first I saw this, I thought, oh, this is another of these woke language guide things.

22:54Poppy Coburn: Someone has decided that that phrase is offensive, possibly racist. They think it's a reference to lynching in the Deep South or something like that. But no, apparently this is because they think international students who come to study Oxford, their English isn't good enough to understand old fashioned idioms like that.

23:10Michael Deacon: I think Oxford University is slightly telling on itself it's basically just admitted that their international students can't speak English properly I mean it's not like we're asking them to pronounce like a very difficult to pronounce word and anyone who's been to university in the last 10 years will be able to tell you this the international students that have brought into universities regardless of their elite universities or their relatively low tier they are there because they spend lots of money unlike us domestic students who are just there have a bit of fun you know and can only give them nine thousand pounds a year which apparently isn't enough for for these institutions they're not really that fast if you actually turn up to your classes or indeed speak the language i remember one time when i was sitting in the library which was a rare occurrence for me this is why it stuck in my mind and i did see an international student put the essay question into google translate then write the essay in their native language and then put it back into google translate i imagine at the time it wasn't a fail sale solution they probably wrote something better than i did which tells you how much of a fantastic student i am but you know learn the ropes is that really so incomprehensible yeah i guess if you only speak mandarin it is

24:17Poppy Coburn: well maybe yeah there is there is some sort of woke stuff uh in this uh language guide as well um i'll just read this one to you um yeah the star guide advises staff to use terms that are current and respectful so for example don't say homosexual you've got to say gay so presumably then you could say, oh, this new language guide is totally gay. That would be fine. But if you said it was totally homosexual, that would be offensive. So note that down. Anyway, speaking of wokery, one more story here. Now, this is about a new book, a new history book for children. Yes. And unlike virtually every history book for children that's been published in the last 20 years, it tells children that it's all right to be proud of British history.

24:56Michael Deacon: This is brave.

24:57Poppy Coburn: It is indeed. Now, this is by the great Don Nigel Bigger. Yes.

25:02Michael Deacon: The non-woke historian.

25:03Poppy Coburn: There you are. He is a frequent contributor to us. Yes, fantastic. And I am delighted to see that someone has finally written a non-woke children's book about British history. This is something for your son. Because there's been so many. Yeah, well, I hope so. I'm going to give it to him because there's so many dreadful books. I mean, do you remember, this was a couple of years ago, there was a children's history book that told children that Stonehenge was built by black people. Now, I can tell you, I was really angry about that because I had been planning to write a history book telling children that Stonehenge was built by trans people.

25:32Poppy Coburn: I thought, oh, I can't believe someone else has got there first. Someone's already got it.

25:35Michael Deacon: Black and trans.

25:36Poppy Coburn: There you are. So now I'm having to write a children's history book saying Henry VIII was gay. That's why he kept the heading his wife. It's like, oh, no, I can't believe another of my wives turns out to be a woman. I've got no luck at all. What's going on here? There you go. Right. Off she goes. Get me another.

25:53Michael Deacon: I remember the slightly infamous Pete Woke book that was called Anti-Racist Baby. And the front cover of it was really great. It's a small child in one of those. What's it called? The kind of baby grow that you attach to yourself.

26:07Poppy Coburn: The sling. Yes.

26:08Michael Deacon: The papoose. Yeah. The papoose. Perfect. Don't get an Oxford University. Shouldn't try and pronounce that one. And the baby is holding their hand up in a fist, a la the Black Panthers. Yes. Which I thought was really, really great. I don't know if they maybe got a dummy inside of the fist. That's why they're doing it.

26:21Poppy Coburn: I see. anti-racist baby well oh my goodness that makes such a change for all those racist babies you get

26:26Michael Deacon: as opposed to have you got any racist baby books still in stock

26:29Poppy Coburn: racist baby you don't want to hear their first word tell you that

26:32Michael Deacon: what happened to the very hungry caterpillar I mean that's probably fat phobic probably can't touch that one anymore

26:37Poppy Coburn: I dread to think

26:38Michael Deacon: that's all for now we'll see you again next week

26:51Thank you.